Wet and wild run

It was time for my long run and I made plans with Jelly to meet. She was planning a 10K run, and I wanted to do a 20K. I would run about 7K, meet up with her, do 10K, then finish off 3K by myself. Easy, right?

Not so.

Well, I was late getting out of my place, so that was bad thing number one. Second, it started to rain. Not a lot of it, in fact, it stopped after a few minutes.


I was running late to meet her at her place (picture here) so I cut a few corners -- and a few Ks -- from my intended route. We started running east on Gerrard and it was a great run. Ran by my old university, my old apartment, the old Chinatown (yes, a lot of old stuff) and the old, rundown neighborhood around Carlaw, an area that I think is a few years yet from being invaded by land-hungry prospective home seekers.

By the way, my Garmin lost signal after 4K, so it was useless for the next 8 or so Km.

We turned onto the Lakeshore, where I took this picture of the route. You can see it's pretty gloomy, but it's nice to get a cool day once in awhile.

We split at Queens Quay and York, and I went home, dropped off my hydration pack and windbreaker, then set out to finish my 20K run. I had a feeling that if I did 6K, that it would make up the distance I lost at the beginning of the run.

Then it rained. Not cats and dogs, but of smaller domestic variety. Fact was, I was getting soaked. But it was fun! I splashed into some puddles, avoiding others. There was also a 10K walk/run on the waterfront, so it was fun to look at the last walkers come into the last K. The Running Room volunteers found it amusing perhaps that i was running with shades on a cloudy day and without a hat. If you're wondering, the shades are more stable than my glasses and R. took my hat a week ago and I forgot to retrive it from her.

Anyways, a soaked 6K later, i was at home. I ran the last 6K as a tempo run.. very powerful finish to a long run.

I did a gmap of the Intended route and the Actual route and guess what? I almost ran exactly 20K. Amazing.

We went to St. Lawrence, where Jelly, R. (who ran 5K by herself) and I had yummy pasta. Then Jelly and I split a veal and eggplant sandwich. As I said, and Jelly agreed, it was the "best meal ever."

Weekly total: 66K
Year to date: 910.5K